Pretty strange.
From the article:
“Rural Iowa matters for another reason in the Democratic contest. In order to encourage candidates to campaign in farming areas, state Democrats have tilted the delegate allocation so that rural areas are disproportionately represented in the final results. This sometimes can lead to bizarre results. As Roger Simon of Politico.com notes, “the turnout in some precincts is so small that a single family—let’s say four people—can determine the winner. In other precincts, only one person will show up and win for his candidate by being the only person in the room.” In small-turnout caucus meetings, ties are resolved by a coin toss or drawing lots. In 2004, four precincts saw literally no one show up to vote in the Democratic caucus.
There are other anomalies on the Democratic side. Some precincts use a different threshold level than 15% for the viability of a candidate. “Residency” rules are incredibly elastic. No one checks identification, and anyone who claims to live in the precinct is allowed to vote. In other words, very little prevents the unscrupulous (such as out-of-state campaign workers who have “lived” in Iowa for a few weeks) from having a role in the process. Each caucus also elects a “permanent chair,” who can have an outsize role in the process. Ned Chiodo, who has been appointed temporary chair of his local caucus by the state Democratic Party, told Politico.com that a permanent chair “controls the flow of the meeting. You have influence. You may be able to pick up a vote or two here and there for your candidate.”
GOOD GRIEF!!
The way the democrats run this ridiculous caucus says alot about how they would run the country as well should they get elected!! I hope we all remember that when the dust finally settles and we have our nominee!
It will be time to licks our wounds from the primaries and pull together to defeat the dems!!
The bottom line in this Opinion Journal story is that while the Republicans cast their vote with a slip of paper, the Democrats have a mind-numbingly complex system in which participants divide up into "candidate preference groups" by standing up. No paper ballots are used. Those candidates who don't get support from 15% or more of those attending a local caucus are deemed not to be "viable," and their supporters have to realign with some other candidate.
Further, for the Democrats, the state party can bend the rules as described in the article so influence can directly result from who has the best organization/spends the most money. That may mean Hillary...